One of the topics that we've been studying in class is the Precious Human Life. Whatever it is that you consider gives meaning to life, whether it be art, science, exploring the mind, philosophy or whatever, it's pretty clear that you can only do it as a human being. And when you look around at how many different kinds of things there are living, the proportion of them that are human is infinitesimally small.
But simply being born with mostly-monkey DNA is not enough for your life to be Precious. You also need freedom and leisure to indulge your chosen method of exploration. If you spend your life, as most people do, working very in order to feed yourself and your family, you just don't have the chance to get interested in much else. If you die of malnutrition before you're five years old, or live in a war zone, or have your rights repressed, you can't even think about anything else. If you're rich and free enough, you still need knowledge -- that is, access to education, teachers, methods, and peers.
Even if all these conditions come together, it is also certain that their concurrence is temporary and will at some point cease. You will become busy, or poor, and sooner or (if you're lucky) later, die.
In the centuries-old texts that we study, this is presented in exhaustive detail as a kick up the arse to meditate and study as well as possible right now, today, while we have the chance. And living 'in India' brings an edge to this contemplation. I say 'in India', because I'm not really living in India. I'm living in a small Western-Tibetan enclave. I sleep in a clean bed and have a hot shower every morning. I wear a different, clean T-shirt every day. I drink bottled water and take malaria tablets. I never eat on the street, where even the ice cream gave my friends food poisoning. I spend energy and money to put as many sanitising and nullifying interfaces as possible between every aspect of my activity and my surroundings. But I can observe; I'm closer to this Third World life than I was in England, and about as close as I want to get. I can observe calmly and dispassionately, because I know in a few weeks I'll be going home.
So what's to observe? Well, I've only seen the very best face of Delhi. We live in one of the poshest areas, but even here outside our gates the taxi drivers sleep in a shelter by the side of the road, as traffic and street dogs pass by. Our trips into town are all by taxi through New Delhi. The poverty and dereliction that you can see here are, apparently, nothing compared to the slums of Old Delhi. So I know that the people I see are, comparatively, doing all right for themselves.
Here's a guy doing well. He's got a job as a labourer. But how many labourers in England would spend the day carrying stone slabs on their head for a pittance?
Here's an animal doing well. Cows have right of way on the streets, and they all look confident and well fed. Still, I'm glad I'm a human being.
This is a market street where a lot of Westerners shop, and stay in little hotels.
What the picture can't convey is the terrific noise from the diesel generators outside every shop, the fumes, the beggars, and the cheap shallow atmosphere. And this is one of the major places. To escape from the crowds, we took a parallel street, and that was like stepping into another world. Here nothing was recognisable -- I wasn't sure what people were doing, or what function the buildings served. Is that a house or a cafe? Is that place being knocked down or lived in? Is that someone's bedroom just facing onto the street with no wall? Just what expression is that on these people's faces?
Like most of the scenes that really affected me, I have no photos. To objectify these peoples' lives in that way seems really rude, especially since the price of my camera would feed a family for a year.
Close by the market is the bus station - never a particularly nice place in any major city. Here's a from-the-hip shot of a guy not doing so well -- lying in the road in the middle of the afternoon with a half eaten meal next to him. Or vomit, it was difficult to tell.
As you often ask yourself here, is he dead or asleep? I think he's asleep.
I'm not complaining, or trying to impress anyone with exotic tales of deprivation. This is just how it is. Billions of people are deprived. And so I really appreciate how precious my life is. That I'm one of the very, very, very few fortunate enough to have all of the myriad conditions to be able to pursue my interest, which is to try to understand how the universe and the mind works.
And so, to meditate, and to bed. Goodnight.
As you remember, when I first arrived in India even the street outside the Institute seemed a strange and threatening place. Gradually it has come to feel pretty much normal. Delhi Station was a step up -- crowded and chaotic. A gaggle of Westerners with an enormous amount of luggage, which we refused to let the kulis carry, was something to be stared at, and I felt a little nervous and uncomfortable.
We found the first class sleeper carriage and settled into our places on the train without major incident. This is the most comfortable way to travel on Indian trains. Each section has triple-decker bunks. Several times on different parts of the journey the Indians sullenly refused any offers to change seats so that friends could sit by each other. This happy chappy picture below soon thought better of it and moved, however. While it's never wise to generalise, Indian people with a bit of money (the journey of over 1000 miles one way, first class, cost less than 20 quid) seem possessed of a pride which it's more constructive to find amusingly irrelevant than annoyingly unbecoming.
You could use of the carriage that rare adjective: clean; it also boasted uncommunicative waiters who periodically brought food and tea. The sandwiches, biscuits, and later curry remarkably resembled 1980's British Railways fare, packaged and lifeless, and for that reason were judged safe to eat by everyone. Boiling water was rendered unto us in miniature Thermos flasks along with two teabags, two packets of sugar, and enough water for one cup of tea.
We all really enjoyed the journey, and whiled away the 20 hours here by playing cards, meditating..
.. or just hanging out.
I took a lot of pictures. Here are some tents-cum-houses on the outskirts of Delhi. This would be perhaps a medium-class slum.
Here is a typical house. Note the way the builders seem unfamiliar with the concept of finishing the upward progress of buildings with a roof, preferring simply to stop when they run out of inspiration or bricks.
In England, whole lines can be shut down if a cow wanders onto the tracks. Here is a whole bovine clan living it large in the spacious environs of the railway lines. Note in the foreground the neatly shaped and stacked dung cakes, of which more later.
I like this guy. The scene reminds me a bit of Constable's The Haywain.
And speaking of which, blow me down and call me a gypsy if this panorama of deepest India doesn't look just like dear old Blighty. Along with the cricket played everywhere from sunup to sundown by barefoot kids, it fair makes you homesick.
Often you get the sense that nothing has changed for some people in the last 2000 years.
The most popular activities in rural India, from my observation, are: standing around, walking along slowly with something on your head, squatting, and idly cycling. Frenetic it ain't.
Although sometimes a real traffic jam builds up at the level crossings.
Ok well that was a long one, to make up for my extended absinthe. We'll pick up the journey from Siliguri next time.
